I swear this tagging business is spreading around the blogosphere like wildfire. Almost all the blogs I visit are at it. Anyhoo because I’m a comformist (well actually Traveller tagged me) I share with you 10 weird things about me:

1. Cats. I hate cats. They scare me and they are evil and they probably have fleas and they clean their fur by licking it (I mean who does that!!??) Saying that, there is a house at the bottom of my street and a cat is always sat at the window or outside on the step. Each time I walk past it I give it salaam and if I’m feeling especially wacky I say ‘alright billy’ (bill-lee = Urdu work for cat)

2. I am obsessed with Arabic! I go on at everyone in my broken Arabic all the time. My favourite word is yallah, which I use way too much, even when it doesn’t make sense to say it. I used to watch Abu Dhabi channel trying to pick up a bit of arabic, but some on the stuff on there was too dodgy for my liking (I thought paki ‘dramas’ were bad!)so I switched over to Arabic al Jazeera.. I would sit there and make out I was totally engrossed in what they were saying, when really I didn’t have a clue.

3. I secretly like the welsh accent. (It’s pretty cool ok!)

4. I have a phobia of rats and mice. I can’t even stand to look at a picture of them. They disgust me. I once discovered a mouse in me house after which I couldn’t sleep. I would lie awake imagining it scuttering up the stairs making its way to my room to attack me. When I did fall asleep I would have nightmares about it.

5. I was once stood on my chair (I am sure that I had a logical reason to be standing on my chair) and I realised that it was quite refreshing to look at my room from a different perspective, so I remained standing there for about five minutes. I later did the same thing in the kitchen.

6. I once made up a list of all the careers I ever wanted to go into. It included; a hacker, a conspiracy theorist and most recently a teacher (I hate kids!)

7. After studying a bit of psychology, I fancied myself as the next Freud and so I would analyse people on the bus. It’s amazing how much you can find out about a person just by observing what they are wearing, carrying etc. Who cares if what you conclude about the person is correct or not, at least it makes tedious bus journeys interesting!

8. I have a collection of videos and recordings of my nephews and nieces making complete fools of themselves on my phone. (like my nephew boasting he’s the flabbiest person in the world – he thought flab meant muscles and I didn’t bother correcting him). I plan to keep them if ever I need to blackmail them in the future.

9. I talk to myself! I think to myself which isn’t so weird because talking to oneself is the first sign of madness, whereas thinking isn’t and that’s why I can admit that I have whole conversations with myself in my head.

10. I used to be a feminist. Not a hardcore weirdo one though. Now I think all feminists need to be knocked out. I also was a bit of a socialist and thought that Lenin was a pretty cool guy… I won’t say what I think of him now.

Ahh the end is in sight. Before I go tho, I tag the following people: Umm HAY, Umm Shurabeel and fromKarachi. Not quite six people but thats it cos (a) everyone else has been tagged and (b) I’m a loner and don’t have any friends.

Your mission (if you choose to accept) is:

People who get tagged must write in a blog of their own ten weird things or habits or little known facts as well as state this rule clearly. At the end you must choose six people to be tagged and list their names. No tagbacks!

People who have memorised the Qur’aan should be known by the night when people are sleeping and he is awake, and by the morning when people are not fasting but he is, by his sadness when they are happy, by his crying when they are laughing, by his silence when they are slandering, and by his piety and humility when they are arrogant. He who has memorised the Qur’aan should be tearful, sad, wise, patient and calm. He should not be rude, inattentive, loud or cruel. – Ibn al-Qayyim

How many of our brothers and sisters and locked up and incarcerated in cages, treated worse than animals? How many have faced nothing but torture and humiliation for years on end, just for believing in La Illaha Illallah? How many?

Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Belmarsh and ghost prisons across the world. Our brothers who are physically and sexually abused. Our brothers whose belief in Allah is mocked. Our brothers who face such unimaginable methods of torture that they are made to confess to crimes they did not commit. Our brothers…yet we sit in a painful silence.

Compare our reaction to the reaction of the kuffar, when 15 of their navy personnel were captured by the rafidah. Compare our silence to their uproar. Our lack of concern to their condemnations. Subhan’Allah 15 of their soldiers were captured and they did everything in their power to ensure their return. The whole world condemned Iran and demanded their return. The kuffar nations put so much pressure on Iran to release them, and when they were released the world stood shocked of news of their ‘ill treatment’…

Their ill treatment? They were captured for straying into Iranian waters (whether its true or not at least they knew what they were captured for). Our brothers have been locked away for years without charge. They were kept in solitary confinement for a couple of weeks. Our brothers have been in solitary confinement for YEARS. The worse ‘torture’ they faced was being blind folded and then later paraded on TV drinking tea. Our brothers are gagged and hooded, they are made to sit in ‘stress positions’ for hours on end. They stripped naked and sexually abused. They are photographed whilst forced to re-enact disgusting sexual acts, the images are then released for the whole world to see. They are beaten and threatened for no crime whatsoever. Some just suddenly disappear to be tortured in ghost prisoners. No body knows where they are and nothing can be done.

Subhan’Allah the kuffar were treated like the queen compared to our brothers, yet have you seen their governments? Have you seen the way they condemn Iran? Have you seen how disgusted they are at the ‘torture’ they faced, at the breaking of the Geneva Conventions?

Where are our leaders? Aren’t they meant to be securing the release of our prisoners? Aren’t they meant to be mounting pressure on the filthy kuffar who hold our brothers in the prisons? Wait. I forgot our leader, the tawagheet who sit on their comfy thrones rather than trying to release our prisoner they are the ones who are incarcerating them. Rather than condemning the torture they are the ones who are carrying it out.

And us? Well, while thousands of our brothers are sat in prisons, wondering whether they will ever see their families again we sit in our comfy homes and do nothing, like we do best.

Who will hear our cries
Who will sacrifice for us their lives
Who will take away our fears
Who will wipe away our tears
Who will bring back our fathers, brothers and sons
Who will bring back our loved ones
Who will speak against the aggression
Who will put a stop to the oppression
Who will mend our broken hearts
Who will explain to our children
Why our lives have been torn apart
Who will open their eyes, hearts and minds
Who will speak against the abuse
Before we run out of time
Who will stop hiding in their homes
Who will join us
So we no longer walk alone